The Making of Mickey Bell

It’s September 2014 and Mickey Bell has HIV, is on the dole, and survives in the high flats in Drumkirk. When advocacy-worker Carmen filled in Mickey’s benefits form she exaggerated his health problems and for the past five years he’s been receiving incapacity living allowance for ‘help getting around’. Now Mickey’s psychotic ex, Tommy, grasses him to the benefit fraud hotline, and Mickey runs away. Accompanied by Tyke, a wee collie dog, and pursued by an investigator from the Department for Social Security, he sets out to climb his last Munro. With the background a celebration of Scotland’s landscape, Mickey’s personal journey from a life on benefits to a brighter future mirrors Scotland’s journey towards independence.